The Tea Party is traditional conservatism, I'll give it that... but modern day Republicans are all Neo-Cons, and it's all about giving money to those that have more than enough of it... I don't want to get into it... but the REAL Tea Party was based off of very angry conservatives, 9/11 truthers and Ron Paul style isolationist/libertarian types that came off of anger from the right of G.W. Bush. It was exploited by the Neo-Cons until it just became a loud, angry, messy, and completely immature Anti-Obama thing. Ron Paul is the closest to some core Tea Party ideals... strangely enough, even some Occupy Wall Street ideals are close to his (except the minimum wage crap... there's NO reason to bring us back to Industrial Revolution US), but the Republican Party wants another Neo-Con in the White House to keep up with the Reagan/Bush SR./Bush Jr. policies of picking fights with random countries to justify high military spending, all the while keeping it underfunded, and yanking out anything that helps the middle and lower middle class out. It's all about short term gains and long term suffering. not saying the Dems are all that much better, but at least Clinton had some of that stuff paid for, even gave us a budget surplus.
We hear all this crap about how angry everyone all the sudden that a Democrat comes into office is about the U.S. debt, which was mainly racked up because they refused to raise taxes on the rich to fund 2 unwinnable wars... most of the money going to no bid contracts to crooked weapons and building companies... not even directly for the troops and actual armor that could protect us. Ever see the rare Disney cartoon where Donald Duck gets a pay check, and a slimey salesman wants him to waste his money gambling, but a Scottish Duck tells him he needs to save so he can pay taxes to fund our soldiers in WW2? Then, it was considered highly patriotic for everyone to give financial support for our troops. Now it's just something Rich people profit off of without having to fund or fight it. That's why the country's in such bad shape. Everyone wants some big "My dad is stronger than your dad" contest, but no one wants to pay for it.